The New York Times has run a story about the young earth creationist (and ex-DI Fellow) Marcus Ross who received his PhD in geological sciences. Predictablly, the denizens of Uncommon Descent see this as some sort of victory. Cordova comments:
He serves as a role model for how ID proponents and even young earth creationists can matriculate through Darwinist controlled institutions.
A role model? Perhaps. But only if one believes that it is OK to lie your way through graduate school. As PZ notes:
He was doing "research" on the distribution of mosasaurs 65 million years ago, but what he was actually doing was echoing ideas he disagreed with to fit the expectations of his advisors--he was a complete fraud.
Exactly.
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This is a sad story of compartmentalization carried to an extreme: a Ph.D. student in the geosciences who is also young earth creationist. This is a tricky subject: religion is not a litmus test for awarding a degree, but supposedly depth and breadth of knowledge is. I say that you cannot…
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By now, you may have heard (via Pharyngula, or Sandwalk, or the New York Times) about Marcus Ross, who was recently granted a Ph.D. in geosciences by the University of Rhode Island. To earn that degree, he wrote a dissertation (which his dissertation advisor described as "impeccable") about the…
From today's New York Times:
There is nothing much unusual about the 197-page dissertation Marcus R. Ross submitted in December to complete his doctoral degree in geosciences here at the University of Rhode Island.
His subject was the abundance and spread of mosasaurs, marine reptiles that, as he…
Sal Says: He serves as a role model for how ID proponents and even young earth creationists can matriculate through Darwinist controlled institutions.
Role model hell Sal, it's another damn miracle!
My guess is that he is just doing what the voices in his head are telling him to do...
Hey, that's insulting to a lot of honest schizophrenics out there.
So the Moonies paid for Wells' degree. Did the DI pay for Ross' or was it Jerry Falwell, his new employer?
Liars for Jesus are popping up all over.
Hey, cool. He is a Rhode Islander too! That means there are at least 2 of us here.
Maybe a RI Creationist Club is in order. :)
z.
If it helps rebalance the world's karma, I was sent to Sunday School by my parents (and even 'taught' the younger kids) but I didn't really believe in god.
John Lynch,
you told us, that Ross hadn't done any actual research.
Have you himself read the thesis of Marcus Ross?
The only thing I've learned from this is that Salvador and the other guys at UD etc. obviously did not study any science. Otherwise they could play that role model themselves. Does anybody know what Sal did at university besides running an IDEA club?
No I didn't. Now stop being a troll and an apologist for a liar.
As I posted elsewhere:
(Disclaimer: I think YEC is codswallop.)
John,
Ok. It was my mistake. I imagined, that you agreed (you wrote "Exactly")with claim, that Ross had made only "research", not real reseach. But it seems like I was misreading . Im sorry.
So, my question is where *was* the major professor in Ross' (assumed lengthy) doctoral program career? While not all major professors are created equal, even the most callous should have known along the way that his views were not only incongruent with those of his major professor, but also likely not to those views of his committee, his department, and -- heck -- the mainstream of his field.
Ross may be culpable for fostering a long-term deception, if not actually academic dishonesty, but you can't award yourself a doctorate. Others in his academic program rightly deserve a bit a blame themselves for allowing this to happen.